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This is the end of a very long two weeks. The micro-sabbatical I'd planned for spring break did not go at all the way I'd intended, but at this point, it's difficult to care.
The Friday before the break my father went into the hospital for an infection and spent the week bouncing in and out of intensive care, since the infection severely dehydrated him, fucked up his organs, and sent his heart off-kilter.
He's okay now (fingers crossed, knock wood, god-willing, whatever), but I spent most of the recess close to my phone, twitching, not wanting to bother my mother, who sent regular updates but was overwhelmed with a host of responsibilities once my dad fell ill. I tried not to be overly dramatic or pessimistic, but for a while, without a lot of information or even the possibility of traveling south (because no one who arrives with three kids, which I would have to do, is helpful to someone in intensive care OR the person looking after him), I imagined the worst and v…

You know what's awesome? I'm now eligible for old-lady poetry awards. That's right. Not that there are a ton of over-40 awards, but when they come around, I could totally throw my purple hat in the ring.
* A quick internet search has corrected me. I would throw my RED hat in the ring. Also, I don't recommend doing that internet search. The results are so saccharine you'll have to bleach your eyes. I took one for the team, ya'll.
*
Anyway, I'm still working on submitting my full-length to lots of places (i.e. just throwing my hard-earned money at the universe, essentially) AND today is the last day of classes/office hours before Spring Break, so I'm looking forward to my micro-sabbatical next week.
* If it happens. My dad's health is a little precarious at the moment, and we might have to take a quick trip south to help out.
*
I plan on working on "Accountability Partners" -- my play that is not my verse play -- and sending out submissions …

Today I'm coming off that glow that arrives during, and just after, working on something you're obsessing over for about 24 hours straight. It's amazing how empty I can feel of ideas and music and language for so long and then, thankfully, they all come back in a flood and I create something that makes me excited, happy, and that I read and feel like, "yeah, that's a poem."
In one of my graduate classes, back when I was a fucking baby with stars in my eyes, Derek Walcott said that most of what we write, if we're lucky, is just good verse. Every once in a while (for him), or once in a lifetime (me), we write a poem.
So currently I feel like I wrote a poem, but knowing myself fairly well at this point, I'm conscious of the fact that a few months from now I'll probably look back at the piece and regard it as merely good verse. And that's okay. Because there are fewer stars in my eyes and I'm not quite so young (although maybe I act like a …

Sarah Kain Gutowski is a Professor of English at Suffolk County Community College on Long Island, where she lives with her husband, three children, and large, goofy dog. She is the author of Fabulous Beast (forthcoming, Texas Review Press, 2019) and Fabulous Beast: The Sow (Hyacinth Girl Press, 2013). Her poetry has been published in Painted Bride Quarterly, Stirring: A Literary Collection, Verse Daily, The Gettysburg Review, The Southern Review, Epiphany, The Threepenny Review, and So to Speak: A Feminist Journal.